Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday June 25, 2010 @12:24PM
from the stand-behind-your-john-hancock dept.

Reader SheeEttin reminds us that back in October, the Supreme Court accepted a case testing whether or not petition signers' names could be kept anonymous. (The premise was that the act of signing a petition is covered by free speech, and thus signers are entitled to anonymity, especially to protect them from harassment.) Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record. "By a strong majority Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a setback for opponents of gay marriage who wanted to keep their identities secret. The justices favored transparency over privacy in a case testing whether signing a petition is a public act. The case began with a bill that the Washington state legislature passed in 2009, expanding the state's domestic partnership law. The new referendum was known as 'everything but marriage' for the enhanced rights it gave same-sex couples. People who opposed the bill gathered 120,000 signatures for a ballot measure asking voters to repeal it. That measure eventually reached Washington voters, who upheld 'everything but marriage.' Those who signed the repeal petition feared that they would be harassed if their names became public, so they went to court challenging Washington's Public Records Act. They argued that signing a petition is speech that is protected from disclosure. But in Thursday's 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. 'Such disclosure does not, as a general matter, violate the first amendment,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court."

I know you're being sarcastic, but it's disgusting how these people are afraid of how others might perceive them, when in fact going 'on record' with dangerous opinions is the very foundation of civic society in the United States. The founders signed their own death warrants with the words "[...] we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." How these cowards could learn from their example.

They need to apply the law to all parts of the government, all information regarding our government should be public unless it is classified. No more meetings behind closed doors hiding the deceit from the public. If our representatives knew that their actions were being recorded the ethics of our representatives would go through the roof.

I agree wholeheartedly. FOIA requests shouldn't even be necessary. There are so many government data sets--statistics, budgets, reports-- that could be and should be released to the public automatically online, but it's important to the civil servants and the elected officials both to do as much business in dark alleys as possible. Who knows what the public might demand if the information were available to hold governments at all levels accountable?

If our representatives knew that their actions were being recorded the ethics of our representatives would go through the roof.

This was the gist of the ruling. The initiative process turns ordinary citizens into citizenlegislators. Although, in general, citizens' political activities are private (vis. voting), when acting as representatives of the public (i.e., as legislators), the presumption of privacy is waived. In addition, the presumption of privacy would have made validation of signatures much mor

What an unsurprising response, an anonymous coward who doesn't have the depth of conviction to stand for his principles. The founders faced the specter of the hangman's noose for treason against the crown of England, but somebody might scratch up your car in your driveway, so you sure as hell can't take a stand... too risky.

I'm glad this country wasn't full of cowards like you in the 18th century.

Point of fact: the country WAS full of cowards like him in the 18th century. The "founding fathers" were a vanishingly tiny group of people, and all their supporters amounted to a small minority of the population. Almost everyone was happy to just let things be.

So a minor tweak to your point would be that you and I are both glad that there were at least a small number of people willing to stand up for their principles.

I would be interested in sources that support your claims. The history as I understand it was that the majority of people in the colonies at the time were sympathetic to independence, with less than a fifth being loyalists, and less than that being truly neutral. The reason that more people didn't volunteer for the Continental Army was simply that the pay and provisioning was meager and sporadic, and life in the colonies was for most tenuous and near subsistence. People largely could not afford to abandon their work and their families to go off and harry the British. I would not call that cowardice of any color.

I am a voting Washingtonian and I thought I'd throw my two cents into the kitty.

"Yes, but you see he's not just griping, he says he's paralyzed with the fear of it. Therein lies the problem and the cowardice."

At first, I was kind of shocked that anyone would even EXPECT non-disclosure when it comes to petition signing. After all, the signatures must be validated, but in hindsight, I began to see some issues.

MY biggest concern is that simple harassment of petition signers might evolve into concerted, specific harassment by special interest groups in an effort to sway voting/signing on specific issues--from medical marijuana supporters having their houses broken into to simply being outed in such a way as to use petition signers as a tool for the opposition (such as researching petitioners and correlating arrest records of such people to the names on the petition to give the impression the people that signed are overwhelmingly criminals, etc.)

But there are two sides to every coin, no?

Every single complaint that I have heard regarding the disclosure of petition signers can also be viewed as a "feature"--that same data can be used by ANY group to track abuses/manipulation of petitions/petition signers, as well as make perfectly clear their intentions. Disclosure can also be used by ME to make sure that nobody is signing petitions under my name.

In the end, I thought transparency was more important then privacy as far as this matter is concerned. It is one of the very few instances where I thought privacy should take a back seat to the common good, and trust me, I value privacy very highly. Twas not an easy decision--the very reason it ended up in the lap of SCOTUS.

My nickname is personally identifiable to anybody willing to do a few minutes of work and has a few brain cells to rub together. I'm not hiding, but I'm not doing anybody's work for them. In fact, the SSID of my wireless at home is the address of my Slashdot profile page. (And at some point when I get back into volunteering time and points for Wigle [wigle.net], my Slashdot identity will be attached to the physical location of my house at least in one publicly accessible place.)

I am not signing a public document and asking the government to restrict access to that signature. It is the prerogative of people to engage in anonymous discourse if they choose it, to the degree that they choose it. I maintain that public documents mediated by the government are not the place for that.

If you're not strong enough in your convictions to be willing to stand up and face the consequences of supporting them, maybe there's a reason you shouldn't be supporting them. While I don't agree with death threats and the like, if you're going to campaign to take away other peoples' rights, you damn well better do it publicly and in full view of everyone else (which includes knowing who you are).

If the government tried to take away your rights in secret, you'd be up in arms about that. Just look at/.'s reaction to ACTA. Well, in case you hadn't noticed, petitions are the peoples' way of acting as the government - thus they too should be transparent and not allow for "shadowy masses" to make the rules.

Also, if someone's truly a wacko who's going to cause problems for you for signing a petition, I've got news for you - they're going to cause trouble whether or not you sign the petition; maybe to someone else instead, but again, that's where the strength of your convictions comes in. It all comes back to that - stand up and announce your position to the world, or SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!

But - You do have to admit that there's a strong desire to avoid retribution for what you believe in. For instance, none of us expect our actual votes in an election to be traced back to us. There is a very strong connection between giving support for a bill and voting for it, and it's quite logical for someone to believe that if a vote is kept private (to protect their rights to free speech and to vote freely) that similar measures would be extended to petitions.

In my opinion, if you are willing to legally prohibit a person from having the same rights you enjoy, you should also not want to work for that kind of person, or have them patronize your business. Thus, if you sign a petition to prohibit gay marriage, you should be very glad when your gay boss fires you, and your gay customers go to another shop. If you think having to find another job is a hassle, imagine having to get married to a person you can't be attracted to, or not get married at all.

Death threats aren't part of a civil discourse. All thinking people condemn violence and the threat of violence.

Fine. Is it the employer's prerogative to not hire blacks or Mexicans either? How do you know there was any bigotry in the workplace? Seriously, if a company fired someone because they found out somehow that the employee signed a petition that the employer opposes, that employer should be sued out of existence. I'm all for the rights of individuals, personal responsibility and I hate most of this PC crap, but are you seriously advocating that employers should be able to fire people if they disagree wit

" Racism has diminished through a shared social development"And how did we get shared social development? By the courts and congress mandating shared schools, shared public facilities, and shared businesses. The civil rights movement inspired the change that the government then enforced.

The triumph of the civil rights movement is exactly the sets of laws and court cases that made it possible for minorities in this country to overcome centuries of persecution and be treated equally. And in less than a centur

You may be willing to sacrifice basic human rights like freedom of association for social causes, but I am not. Desegregation should have happened, EOE should have happened, but in the public sector, not the private. Would this have slowed the process? Yes, but on the other side we'd all be more free, minorities included. As it is we now pick these petty fights based on the destruction of the freedom of association, since all the 'men only' clubs and organizations have been taken on, now men sue 'women only

Do you really think that underqualified candidates aren't hired because of the 'positive' nature of EOE? We know that underqualified admissions are approved at universities because of affirmative action.

Force doesn't cease to be force just because the thing forced isn't 'additional'. And of course the law doesn't ask people not to be racist, you might as well pass a law that says blue must be everybody's favorite color. I'm not saying that negativity towards race as a basis for hiring is good, I'm saying

Market theory is premised on perfect knowledge, perfect competition, and rational deciders. As it turns out, all of those premises are wrong, more or less. (They are each somewhat true, but less so than untrue. That's why reality somewhat matches the theory, but less so than not.)

Imperfect knowledge: If you want to go to a bar, but you only know about smokey bars (maybe because there are only smokey bars), then you will sigh and go to a smokey bar. You have no choice.

Imperfect competition: Maybe there is a non-smokey bar, but other qualities of a bar make it preferable to you. So you sigh and go to the bar which you otherwise prefer, despite the smoke.

Irrational decision: Maybe you never really thought about bars being smokey, like you just assume they all have smoke and that's the price of admission. The thought literally never occurred to you to choose a non-smokey bar.

My guess is that it is the first of those: almost all bars were smokey, so there was hardly any choice to be made. People wanted to go to a drinking establishment, and that meant going to a smokey bar.

I relate this to food labeling. Americans like their food labels, so why did it take legislation to get them? Why didn't the market provide food labels? Think about it: if you walked into a grocery store and none of the food was labeled, would you walk out and starve to death? No, you would just buy the available food. That's a failure of market theory -- basically because market theory isn't very good at matching reality.

In this case, the big fear is about being outed. The harassment isn't going to come from the gay community. It's what some signers wil have to deal with in their own community when their boy toy spots their name on the petition.

Wait, I don't follow. Why would a closeted gay sign a petition against gay marriage if no one could verify that he'd done it? I mean, I can see why a closeted gay would sign such a petition if the names were going to go public. If anything, the closeted gay would want the names to go public as evidence that he's not a gay sympathizer.

This is not about gays not wanting to be outed as gays. This is about bigots not wanting to be outed as bigots.

I live in the Seattle area. Among my hobbies and avocations are community theater and gay rights, even though I am straight. I am for same sex marriage (actually, I'm for getting government getting out of the business of licensing marriage and getting religion out of the business of defining it), I've performed them, gratis. However, I have a hard time with this. The more vocal of the gay community were trying to bully state voters who were opposed to a bill that would provide almost all the benefits of marriage to gay couples.

I routinely sign petitions that, even if I disagree with the premise, I believe deserves a fair airing in public. As a result of this action, I had a minor break with some of my gay friends who were very angry and wanted the names of all the signers.

How does not making these signatures part of the public record prevent the elections office from verifying them?

Are they going to verify that they exist, or that they signed them? I'm just thinking it'd give people a chance to say "I didn't sign this!" I'm going to be honest here, I watch too much Simpsons. I'm imagining dead people 'signing' these petitions.

And that's very much part of the issue. My first, and incorrect, thought was, "there are government bodies that verify the signatures." BUT, they're over-worked, under-staffed, and frequently might not care. If the signatures are open and public record, then any of us can verify them. And that is good for us!

As has been mentioned, our Founding Fathers knew they were signing their death warrant with the documents that begat our country. While we have many rights, many forget we have just as many responsibilities. It is our duty to be an active citizenry- police our government, police our police, and fight for our rights and freedoms. Is it really worse to be 'outed' for believing something enough to sign a petition than the death-warrant-like documents our forefathers signed? At worst, it is on the same level, but only rarely.

As a very minor case-in-point that could, in theory (but not likely, I imagine) keep me out of some government jobs, I signed the petition here in California to put the legalization of marijuana on the ballot. Personally, I don't want to be associated with drugs in any way, not even mj. But I believe there is some merit to the proposal to legalize it and it should be put to the voters. So, despite my feelings of some risk (right or wrong), I signed.

Stand for what you believe in. If someone brings debate to you, debate. If someone brings trouble to you, trouble it back!

Because if the people (I would guess it's part of the Secretary of State's office) checking the petition find out, that signature would be invalidated. If there are a large number of such signatures, there may also be a fraud investigation.

At least in my state, to be a valid signature, An address is required along with your name. "Padding" can be fairly easy found out by invalid addresses, or doing a random sample and contacting some of the people who signed the petition to verify they did sign the petition. Making signatures public information is good because more of the public can be utilized for verification of signatures.

What stops people from using a fake name is courage, and the desire not to tell a lie.

Whatever side of the Prop 8 question you're on, you should be free to express your opinion, but shouldn't like about who you are when you do so. The courage of one's convictions says: sign. Other means of expression demand anonymity.

I agree with you about the man up and stand for your beliefs, however history has shown that standing for something unpopular had a nasty tendency to get you dead or injured.

It doesn't even have to be unpopular if the issue is one where those who oppose your position are willing to use intimidation tactics (which is the case with this petition). It will be interesting to see how those who went to court to get the names on this position react when it is a petition favoring one of their causes that receives this treatment. The interesting thing about this case is that before this particular petition, the state had found that these petitions did not fall under the Public records A

Intimidation/threats are against the law. Prosecute that. Whenever someone argues that we should ban/stop something because possibly one day it might be used to commit a crime, you've lost. Same goes for Torrents, Guns, books, video games, etc.

before this particular petition, the state had found that these petitions did not fall under the Public records Act.

When was this? What was the petition number?

So, the people who signed this petition had reason to believe that their identities would not become general knowledge.

Sure, if you ignore the fact that they are signing them in public places, in broad daylight, in plain view of the general public, on a piece of paper left on a table for the next few hours, which will also be seen by as many as 30 or

I agree with you about the man up and stand for your beliefs, however history has shown that standing for something unpopular had a nasty tendency to get you dead or injured.

In a case like this, anonymity is not a protection for cowards. It's a protection from cowards. There are few things more cowardly and insecure than hating someone and wishing to harm them because they do not believe as you do.

Not in this specific example. The gay community isn't exactly going out of its way to violently oppress those who oppose it, while the other side can't say the same.
In fact, I'd be surprised if this were anything more than the traditional belief that "since they should fear retribution from me, I should fear equivalent retribution from them." It's a pretty common belief among modern social conservatives.

> The gay community isn't exactly going out of its way to violently oppress those who oppose> it, while the other side can't say the same.

That depends on where you live and how you define "gay community". In California during the Proposition 8 debates and right after its passage there was quite a number of rather ugly incidents.

http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Dec08/Art_Dec08_09.html [christianexaminer.com] lists a few; I'm not sure how you can view spray-painting buildings belonging to particular religious groups, punching your neighbors in the face, putting up "bigots live here" signage, etc as something other than "violent oppression". Of course you may be affected by your dislike for the targets of said oppression, but consider how we would view people spray-painting signs saying "Jews live here", say?

Now clearly only a small fraction of the "gay community" is involved in such acts. On the other hand, only a small fraction of opponents of gay marriage, say, is involved in violent acts. Neither is acceptable, and both are violent oppression in any meaningful sense of the word.

All of which comes down to the fact that any group that feels like it's in their power (either due to being a majority group or due to special protections from the government like the aristocracy in medieval Europe) will tend to violently oppress people it doesn't like. I wish it weren't so, but history and current events suggest that it is. What we should strive for is minimizing such incidents as much as we can, and NOT through making people shut up and conform.

> Actually, I think I would view that as "violent rebellion" and not oppression.

Uh... no. "Violent rebellion" is when someone targets the government via violent action. Targeting your neighbors for what they happen to believe is NOT violent rebellion.

Specifically, violent attacks on neighbors who you think will be unable to defend themselves because they will lose in the court of public opinion (which is what was going on in large part during the Prop 8 shenanigans) aren't justified.

Oh I'm not saying it's not wrong, or that I agree with it, or that it isn't another form of hate crime. I'm just saying I don't consider it "violent oppression". I think it's more of a rebellion against the groups that have kept equal marriage rights down for so long.

> There's a big difference between hating someone for their race and hating someone for> their opinions and behavior

Most of the hatred of Jews historically has been for their opinions and behavior; the Third Reich is a rare exception that attempted to reclassify the whole thing as a racial issue. In the US, in particular, Judaism is typically viewed as a religion, not a race.

Replace "Jews live here" with "Mormons live here" or "Catholics live here" if you prefer. My point stands.

No, hating a person who is Jewish because of their behavior is fine. Hating all Jews because of their perceived behavior and opinions is racism. You don't see the difference there? In the first one, it is a person's own behavior that is causing others to hate them; in the second one, it is the behavior of others that causes the hatred.

Apparently you'd like to re-frame your statement to compare their 'Bigots live here' to '[X believer] lives here'. There's still a huge difference. There's lots of religi

None of that matters. The fact is, the signatures on any petition should be made available for public scrutiny and so they can be verified. I was part of a campaign that stopped a petition in my home state when we caught them doing a lot of underhanded things that the local bureaucrats turned a blind eye too.

And, on the reverse end, I had a petition I was an active member of have the same thing happen to it (we won though because we weren't dirty) but it's nice when your opposite looks at it and has to concede to the fact that you did indeed get enough legitimate signatures.

I have to be honest, as someone who has worked as a political activist and had everything from death threats to vandalism occur, I don't want to work with people who aren't willing to do the same. If a particular belief isn't worth taking grief from cowards, it's not that important to you. Stand up for what you believe or sit down, shut up and play the part of a domesticated animal. People who only get involved when it's safe are just as cowardly as the haters and will ultimately get their just deserts.

however history has shown that standing for something unpopular had a nasty tendency to get you dead or injured.

History has also shown that sometimes in order to enact a major change some people have to get dead or injured. During the American Revolution, people didn't try to remain anonymous. John Hancock famously signed his huge ass signature on the Declaration of Independence because he WANTED it to be known that he supported it. These men knew that this document meant that they very well might be swinging at the end of the gallows, but the cause was still worth it.

I think I'm missing something here in this discussion. Signing a petition is a way of saying that *I* support this, it's a way of taking a public stand on the issue. That's why you sign your *name*, instead of ticking a box anonymously. That's also why petitions are, at least in theory, taken seriously -- it's not an anonymous mob who support the petition, it's a bunch of specific people who are willing to put their names on record.

Which, incidentally, can be a problem with petition drives too. Part of the verification process for a petition can involve contacting signatories and asking them why they signed - if the answer is "Some guy paid me 5 bucks" or "What petition?", smell a rat.

That's one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a while. How easily people seem to forget the reasons [wikipedia.org] why we have a secret ballot [wikipedia.org] in the first place. Governments invariably tend toward corruption, which is something the founders understood quite well. Go back and read the Declaration of Independence.

The problem with making people's voting records public is that it opens the door for a corrupt government, or even just an angry mob, to influence election results by intimidation and reprisals. Go read George O

Voting is a duty and is critical to the functioning of a representative government. It is a special case where freedom from outside influence needs special protection.

Signing a petition is a choice; if you want to have your voice heard in that way, you choose to do so.

The purpose of a petition is to show a threshold level of support for an issue before bothering to hold a vote. If you can't come up with X signatures from people who are willing to stand by their belief, then you don't have that threshol

No, Voting should remain as it is, you have to prove your ID and sign-in to vote, so that no one person can vote twice (their vote and yours). But who you vote for should not be a matter of public record. Petitions while related to voting do not carry the same weight as a vote, and names need to be verified to show that X number of people did in fact sign the petition.

The record of who voted is already public record. If somebody who is not qualified to vote did so, you can't undo their vote, but if you found enough such misvotes you might be able to challenge the entire election. You could also pressure the government to prosecute the voter.

No, he's saying you can get a record of *who* voted, not *how* they voted. Accordingly if you can find enough examples of invalid voters voting (without knowing how they voted) that it may have made an impact on the election, you can potentially have the election overturned and redone.

My personal opinion is that a petition should be independently verifiable as to its validity (to make sure there is no petition stuffing going on), and the only way to do that is to make signatory information available to those independent verifiers - and anyone should be able to be an independent verifier.

...if you feel about something so strongly that you are willing to sign a petition about it, you shouldn't be hiding your name. Stop being a coward, and own up to your opinions/decisions.

Ever heard of the secret ballot? There are some very good reasons why we have one. It was created as a response to the coercion and intimidation that went on before one's suffrage could be exercised anonymously. It makes a good analogy for this petition. I'll add that "coward" is a judgment against the character of a person you have never met. Having described that, I feel no need to respond to it or the emotional nature behind it. Instead, I'd like to ask you a factual question.

Ever heard of the secret ballot? There are some very good reasons why we have one. It was created as a response to the coercion and intimidation that went on before one's suffrage could be exercised anonymously. It makes a good analogy for this petition. I'll add that "coward" is a judgment against the character of a person you have never met. Having described that, I feel no need to respond to it or the emotional nature behind it. Instead, I'd like to ask you a factual question.

I view signing a petition as serving the same purpose as holding up a picket sign.

If the signatures remain anonymous, the signers have a measure of protection against harassment. Someone gains from that scenario and I can't think of anything it does to harm anyone else. The list of signatures can still be checked to make sure there are no duplicates etc.; the list and whether there are duplicates is just not a matter of public record.

And if I had four wheels, I'd be a wagon.

If the signatures are published publically, who gains or who benefits from this? For the opponents of the petition who did not wish to sign it, does it enhance their lives or further their cause in any way to know that John Smith from another city signed this petition? What good or useful purpose does it serve? Does that purpose outweigh the very real possibility of harassment?

Bottom line: if you feel strongly enough about something to declare your support for it with a fucking signature, you should be man (or woman) enough to own up to it and deal with whatever consequences that may include. If you don't want people to know you feel a certain way about something, or if you fear retribution for your opinion, then you should just shut up and not express it.

Except for the part where there is an independent verification body that certifies election results, and where voting elects people the positions of power while petition signing is part of the nominally open and public process of political debate.

So yeah, other that that, the secret ballot is a great analogy for this petition. But including that, the secret ballot is such a terrible analogy for this petition that it's incredible anyone would bring it up if they have any clue whatsoever as to how secret ballots actually work, and how much effort is made to verify that people in secret ballot situations don't vote twice, and their identity matches who they say they are, and they are actually legally allowed to vote.

For all we know the names on this petition are "Donald Duck" repeated 100,000 times, or the names of closet gays (also known as Bible Believing Christians) and their minor children.

Publishing the names serves the good and useful purpose of validating that the signers are who they say they are, and that they are adults living in the State of Washington, as opposed to shills from out of state, minors, or fictional characters. Anyone who wants their voice to be taken seriously in public debate--which is what this petition is part of--would be strongly in favour of having their name known.

Harassment builds character. As other people have stated, if a person feels strongly enough to go on the record in support of something, they should do so knowing that at some point they may have to actually stand up for their beliefs. As a country we seem to spend a lot of time protecting ourselves from each other. We constantly turn to third parties, rather than dealing directly with each other. At some point, everyone has to drum up the courage to look another human being in the eye and say, "You can take your ignorance and go fuck yourself."

The whole point of petitions and voting and change revolves around standing up for yourself or others. It involves doing what you believe in. Standing up for a belief often times bring grief, especially when that belief lies far enough outside of the mainstream. Change often times hurt. The more extreme the change, the more likely there will be negative reprocussions.

In response to your questions about what good public disclosure serves, it serves the purpose of shining light on a cause. It shows the rest of society just how many people are willing to stand up for their beliefs. As Ghandi said, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. THEN THEY FIGHT YOU. Then you win." There are plenty of laws on the books to deal with harassment. Harassment may be effective for limited times in certain circumstances. In the long run, the harassers will get theirs.

Harassment sucks. I'm not trying to minimize that fact. As a human being, you can't hide behind anonyminity. You have to face your harassers and overcome them. Often times the best way to do it involves simply ignoring them. "Sticks and stones..." and all that. Communities form for reasons. A sad fact of human beings seems to be that we will never always get along with everyone else. There will always be division and strife. Band together with those who are of like mind.

You might just avoid it. But others might replace the word "avoid" with the word "vandalize."

FYI I'd never vote for gay marriage. Does that make you dislike me?

Would it suddenly make a difference if I told you that I would like to see the government eliminate all references to marriage of any kind, including traditional (read: heterosexual) marriages? That is, I would like to see the complete and entire elimination of government recognition of "marriage".

That's Un-American! I deserve the right to petition for laws restricting other people's behavior without any risk of being called to account for having done so!

This country was founded by people who knew that the right to oppress people they didn't like was a right worth crossing the ocean and living in ass-end of the earth for! Who are some activist judges to deny our puritan heritage?

I agree that the names on a petition should be made public. But when it results in death threats and other forms of harassment [nytimes.com] there needs to be vigorous law enforcement to avoid political action by intimidation (or worse).

I think the best way to imagine this is to contemplate the consequences of anonymous petitions. Without the signatures and names being public record, I could pretty much create a petition for anything with any number of signatures you can imagine. With ballot box voting, we've at least done some due diligence on the qualifications of those who get to drop ballots into the box, even if their choices are anonymous, their identities are not.

I suppose it would depend on the case. It would make sense to me that a particular petition should be allowed anonymity. There's no doubt that petition signing can be enough cause for other's to respond in hate. For online petitions it would be easy to implement a check-box that allows each individual signer the right to remain anonymous as desired, which the court should uphold - afterall, if the checkbox is "opt-in" to remain anonymous it should be clear to the court what a person's intentions are.

I think it should be expected that if you sign a petition, the information is public. Otherwise, there would be no way to validate the petition. The constitution protects free speech, although not necessarily ANONYMOUS free speech. There are other avenues for anonymous free speech anyway.

Indeed. Although I don't know why this got modded funny. I'd say insightful. The 1st and the 2nd prop up the people and ensure that we can not only freely speak, but that we can protect ourselves against those who would abuse our rights in the first place.

Cowards. If you are willing to put your name on a petition to get a measure on the ballot, then you should be willing to stand by your decision. Claiming you don't want your name to be revealed because your friends and neighbors might think differently about you is no excuse to try and hide from your decision.

It's always funny when those who try to wrap themselves in the veils of freedom and democracy are generally the first ones who don't want others to know what they're up to.

How else can you verify that all votes are valid? Seriously, it's the same problem, they should be solved the same way.

They are not the same problem.

You register to vote. You go to your assigned voting place. A trained volunteer will validate your name and address. Some states require ID to be presented to vote. You fill out your ballot, pull a lever, or whatever registers your vote and then you leave. Your vote is anonymous, but unless your county uses a paper ballot it's not that hard to match your signa

The SCOTUS pointed out that there are exceptions, and the lawyer for the petitioners stated that he believes their case falls in the realm of those exceptions. So it'll go back to a lower court to determine if it within them.

It strikes me as odd though. I thought the whole point of signing a petition was to publicly announce your support for the petition. I mean, if you don't feel strongly enough to write your name publicly, why not just write Mickey Mouse? And hell, if there is going to be no public scrutiny of who is brave enough to actually back the petition, what's to keep the petitioner from just writing Mickey Mouse 120,000 times.

There SHOULD be an element of risk to signing a petition. You have to be willing to put your name on the line, literally. That includes showing support for the issue, and dealing with people who may disagree with you.

I mean, if you don't feel strongly enough to write your name publicly, why not just write Mickey Mouse? And hell, if there is going to be no public scrutiny of who is brave enough to actually back the petition, what's to keep the petitioner from just writing Mickey Mouse 120,000 times?

The lawyer's assertion that the petition signers are at risk of harm or retribution is ridiculous. The list of financial contributors to the initiative has been public for quite some time, and as far as I know, none of them have been the victim of anything beyond boycott threats, which are not illegal.

Not everything on a petition has a moral component to it. What if there's a petition calling for a reduction in prison time for non-violent offenders? It doesn't pass, but now the cops have a list of people to "check up on" to see if they're drug users or visit prostitutes? Yes, that's somewhat of a far-fetched example, but it's exactly the kind of behavior that requires anonymous voting. I fail to see how anonymous petition signing is any different.

The issue with petitions it that it would be prohibitively expensive to create a system to submit petitions for anonymous votes exactly one time per eligible voter. It is not anonymous because it cannot be validated if it is.

There is a plus side to this: people will have to get serious about what they wish to get involved in. I'm queer identified but there are times when people thing the best thing they can do is just make a signature for a cause, without actually going out and supporting a cause.

Mind you, if you don't have to share your Vote with the general public, these details should probably be kept from their eyes as well. There are people who will harm you, and there is always the chance the Government would put you on a

I have a question then. Since the VOTE is a public action too, does this ruling means that voting signatures should be public too?
And don't get me wrong, but i really want to know who voted for who....

Voting is government-originated action that determines the opinion of the public on a particular subject or candidate for public office. It is ordinary, as the voting is a mandatory (and usually the only) way to perform some functions of the political system. There are whole systems (sometimes quite complex and only viable if implemented at the scale of the whole society) to ensure that votes can be counted without revealing individual voters' choices.

Actually, the LOGS of who voted - not what they voted for - ARE public record. I can tell which elections you voted in; it's public record that you voted - just not who you voted FOR.

A vote is a decision. A petition signature is a public, open attempt to submit an issue to the voters.

Petition signatures need to be public. The number one electoral fraud in this country is falsification of petiition signatures. Hotly contested races will hire outside firms to verify petition signatures on a routine basis, and this is necessary in any adversarial system.

Usually only a small number - 1-5% of registered voters - is required to put a measure or candidate on the ballot, which then leads to a secret vote.

Democracy has risks. If there's any issue that can't muster between one and five percent of people willing to take a public stand on an issue than we're already doomed.

Also, signing a petition is NOT necessarily an endorsement of an issue or candidate. It is merely a declaration that a person feels an issue is worthy of a vote. It usually - but not always - indicates a signer supports an issue. I have signed petitions for candidates who I did not support simply because the candidate I DID support was already on the ballot but I thought the opposing candidate had a right to be heard.

The petition process is the first step in the making of laws. Everything about the making of laws, from petition to enforceable law, should be public. Today a minority that claims oppression seeks to use the law to hide its political activity from public view. However, tomorrow it may be a powerful minority--like a financial or military interest that may want to hide its activity from public view. Transparency is best.

If somebody is trying to make a law that infringes upon my freedom, I want to know who

If I go into a voting booth, I close a curtain and nobody's looking over my shoulder.

If I sign a petition, I can see the names and addresses of everyone who signed the petition before me (at least the ones on the same page I'm currently signing). And after I sign it, I know the next guy, or the signature gatherer, can read what I just wrote.

That's a pretty clear difference in expectation of privacy if you ask me.

Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record.

The Court decided no such thing. What the Court did rule was that a law that made them part of the public record did not violate the First Amendment. Whether petition signatures are actually part of the public record is up to the states.

Isn't it kind of obvious that the whole point of signing a petition and printing your name (and probably address as well), that you are formally and non-anonymously declaring that you want something?

With anonymity, what is left of the very idea of petition? Nothing; you might as well get rid of the signatures, names and addresses altogether, replace the lines with a grid of boxes, and say at the top, "Check off a box if you want ___" and then give a sheet full of Xs written with different pens in different styles to your government representative to totally impress them with how passionately their constituents feel about something.